Buhari Commissions First African Quality Assurance Centre in Ogun
Rebecca Ejifoma
President Muhammadu Buhari, Wednesday, commissioned African Quality Assurance Centre in Ogun State.
Speaking at the commissioning of the AQAC on Sagamu, Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, the president commended the African Export and Import Bank (AFRIXEMBANK) for the newly commissioned centre.
He emphasised the importance of the centre in improving quality assurance for domestic consumption.
According to the president, the centre will encourage such a policy and give confidence to manufacturers that raw materials from Nigeria are of the highest acceptable quality.
Represented by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Niyi Adebayo, the president added that this first-of-its-kind quality assurance centre in Africa places Nigeria on the right footing as “We continue to drive Nigeria’s industrialisation”.
The president is also confident that this would intensify the morale of producers and manufacturers that whatever raw materials “We make domestically are of the highest acceptable standards”.
Buhari also noted that the AQAC would create jobs and address the abysmal rate of unemployment as well as put Nigeria’s industrialisation on sound footing.
“It will improve domestic consumption as our priority is to protect the lives and wellbeing of our people by ensuring the quality of what they consume,” says the president.
Ogun State Governor, Dapo Abiodun, said the opening of the African Quality Assurance Centre represents the government’s commitment to diversify the nation’s economy from the over-reliance on crude oil.
He further listed other benefits of the centre to include economic boost, stimulating jobs, facilitating trades within and outside the continent as well as accelerating safe and quality food exports and consumption.
The governor, however, regretted that Intra-Africa trade currently stands at around 14 per cent compared to approximately 60 per cent, 40 per cent, and 30 per cent intrastate-regional trade achieved by Europe, North America and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) respectively.
Hence, he described the commissioning of the centre worth $11 million as another symbolic representation of the commitment of the African Export and Import Bank (AFRIXEMBANK) as a partner in the development agenda in Ogun State.
“We are sincerely proud to be part of this success story. Our vision remains to give Ogun State focused and qualitative governance and to create the enabling environment for a public-private sector partnership, which is fundamental to the creation of an enduring economic development and individual prosperity of the people of the state.
“For us in Ogun State, we recognised the strategic importance of agriculture in the economic development of Nigeria and Ogun State in particular. Hence the inclusion in our development pillars of I.S.E.Y.A,” he listed.
Abiodun listed the main objectives in the agricultural sector as food security, agro value-chain development and agro-industrial transformation.
The President of AFREXIMBANK, Prof. Benedict Oramah underscored the standard and poor infrastructure as constraints of African export.
According to Oramah, the bank aims to facilitate the standard of African export by establishing quality assurance centres across Africa.
“The centre will raise the bar by testing member countries’ export products and ensuring they meet acceptable standards thus improving the continent’s competitiveness in the global market,” he added.
He also highlighted plans by the bank to invest $100 million for the investment of quality assurance centres across Nigeria.
Present at the commissioning were the Executive Vice President Intra-Africa Trade Bank AFREXIMBANK, Mrs Kanayo Awani; Senior Vice President of Africa Bureau Veritas, Mr Marc Roussel; and the Director of Export Development, AFREXIMBANK, Mrs Oluranti Doherty among others.
